


We'll Meet Again

by Higgles123



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24076525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgles123/pseuds/Higgles123
Summary: Just a little one shot I wrote for VE Day.
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	We'll Meet Again

Sitting at her dressing table, the faint strains of Vera Lynn wafted up from the street below, and outside her window the flags of red, white and blue flapped in the gentle breeze. Madeleine looked in the mirror and for a moment, her reflection changed. Gone was the grey hair, wrinkles and sunspots, only to be replaced by the vibrant young woman she had once been. Full peach lips and sparkling green eyes that stood out against the dark hair she always wore down to frame her heart shaped face. She closed her eyes and a lone tear slid down her weathered cheek, dropping onto the rings she wore on her left hand. Seventy five years ago today, at the tender age of nineteen she had been full of the same bittersweet joy everyone else had when after almost six arduous years, the war that had disrupted their lives and torn apart their families was finally at an end. 

The truth was that for Madeleine, VE Day had meant not only was the war over and their lives could try and be rebuilt once more, but it meant that a new chapter in her life was about to begin. He was coming home; he was coming back to her. 

She remembered the day she first met Babe Heffron. Flaming red hair and cheeks to match, Madeleine had been working in the small shop her parents owned when he came through the door with a friendly yet nervous smile on his face. He had bought some buttons and a piece of card, which at the time she hadn’t thought odd but then as the weeks went by and he kept coming in for more and more random items, she began to wonder if this was really the best of what the Yanks had to send into war. 

There was a dance at the village hall one night, and Madeleine revelled in the opportunity to dress up and pretend the war didn’t exist for an evening. Babe was there with the men from his company, and they shared a pleasant evening talking and dancing. One would never have known it upon first appearances, but boy could that man move. The night drew to a close and as Babe walked Madeleine home, two months of polite conversation and meaningful glances across the counter came to a crescendo. They kissed under a streetlight that no longer shone, wrapped in each other’s arms ignoring the hoots and hollers of his friends nearby. 

“About fuckin’ time,” a rather brash, dark haired fellow who Madeleine recognised as Babe’s closest friend, Bill Guarnere chortled. 

After that, Madeleine and Babe had spent every possible moment together, trying to cram the overwhelming emotions they felt for one another into an hour here or an hour there. They knew it was only a matter of days, perhaps weeks, until they would be forced apart with the knowledge that they might never see the other again always at the forefronts of their minds. 

_They lay in the soft grass, their hands entwined as they bathed in the sort of afterglow that only comes after two people have joined not only their bodies together but their entire souls as well. The sun was high in the sky and the birds above twittered happily. A butterfly landed on a purple pansy close to them and Madeleine smiled at the simplicity of the moment. He was going tomorrow. She didn’t know where; perhaps he didn’t know either. She wondered if after he was gone and she saw the white of one of those butterflies would she think of this moment fondly or with sadness? How was she supposed to go on living without seeing him every day? That freckles face and those cheeks that blushed any time he kissed her or told her he loved her._

_“Don’t cry,” Babe murmured, bending down to kiss her cheek._

_Madeleine hadn’t even realised she was crying, but how could she not be? Her heart hurt more than she ever realised it could._

_“I’m gonna come back, Maddy,” Babe promised. “I’m gonna come back and when I do, I’m gonna marry you. I love you so much and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you as my wife. You know that right?”_

That heartfelt declaration and the ring that he pulled out of his pocket and slid onto her hand had been the only thing to get her through what came next. Twiddling that very same ring on her finger; the small and diamond shape emerald the same shade as her eyes, Madeleine smiled to herself as she remembered the day the war had ended. A few days later she had received a letter from Babe and she could feel his excitement coming off of the paper. He had survived and they would finally be together again. 

Madeleine joined the VE day celebrations, just like the rest of Aldbourne and the rest of the country, but the truth was that for her the war wouldn’t be over until he came back to her. She couldn’t shake the silly niggle that despite him having survived the horrors of Europe, some sort of injury might now befall him and take him before he could return to her.

The war had been over for almost three months and still she waited for him. On an unsuspecting Thursday afternoon, the little bell above the door jingled and when Madeleine looked up the pen in her hand fell to the counter top with a clatter that she couldn’t hear over the pounding in her ears. 

“I told you I’d come back.”

They were the first words he uttered before she flew over the counter and flung herself into his waiting arms. 

Seventy five years later and she could still remember exactly how he had smelt, and how he had felt when he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her like she was the air he needed to breathe. Seventy five years later and as the people of her small neighbourhood in Philly, friends and family she had made and created with the husband she adored, gathered to celebrate a time in history that should never be forgotten, Madeleine once again found herself swamped by that very same bittersweet joy. Joy that her husband and his comrades were remembered today for their bravery and sacrifices, but sadness that he was not here to witness the celebration in his and their honour. 

Madeleine picked up the picture on her bedside table and allowed herself to go back to the day Babe had made good on his promise to make her his wife. She couldn’t wait for the day when she would once again be joined with him wherever it was he waited for her. 

“Soon, my love,” she pressed a tender kiss to the smiling face that had captured her heart and kept hold of it even now. “We’ll meet again soon, my love.” 

_“We’ll meet again,_

_don’t know where,_

_don’t know when,_

_But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.”_


End file.
